by Layton Green
“Is she talking about the cloud?” Cal said.
“I think she’s implying they’re beyond that,” Andie said. “Maybe she means storing information on atoms, but that’s brand-new . . . Nothing approaching this sort of scale.”
Andie had to admit the implication of Hypatia’s words—centuries and even millennia of knowledge hidden away from the general populace—was an incredibly tantalizing proposition. A sudden thought hit her. What if Democritus’s theories on the atom had not been abandoned after all, but kept alive by whoever had started this library?
And he was but a single philosopher among the legions of thinkers and inventors lost to the ravages of time. What if there was an entire parallel track of scientific knowledge and progress unknown to the vast majority of the world?
Andie walked to one of the walls and placed her hands on the smooth onyx surface. It was solid. She waved a hand in front of a violet beam. No heat, no variance in the light.
“Can we look at the records?” Cal asked Hypatia. “Take any of this out of here?”
“Do you possess archival access?”
“Yes.”
“Then please step forward so I may scan your retina.”
“Um, maybe I don’t.”
“I’m afraid the knowledge in this library is unavailable to those without archival access.”
“What are the objects in the house?” Andie asked. “In the rooms upstairs?”
“Objects in the personal collection of the Keeper.”
“But what are they?”
“Objects in the personal collection of the Keeper.”
“Okay—who’s the Keeper?”
“I am the avatar of the Keeper. But please, if you prefer, call me Hypatia.”
As intriguing—and maddening—as the conversation was, Andie had the feeling she was supposed to do something here. Something to move things forward.
Maybe she was supposed to ask the right question. “How much information is in here?”
“We have carefully curated our collection, as a librarian is at risk of being swallowed by her own library. According to Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian literary figure who lived from 1899 to 1986, a library in which every book exists is simply called ‘the universe,’ a place of infinite possibility that is impossible to comprehend.”
“That’s pretty deep, Hypatia, but I have to disagree,” Andie said. “We don’t know yet what might matter.”
“Are you arguing with a voice assistant?” Cal asked.
Andie paced back and forth, shredding a thumbnail. “I’m just trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do.”
“Try showing her the Star Phone.”
Andie had been debating how much to reveal, but she reasoned anyone listening behind the scenes would at least know about the Star Phone, since it had granted them entry. After taking out the device, she slowly circled the room, aiming it first at the onyx partitions, the ceiling and the floor, and then finally at the violet cylinder. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Hypatia,” Cal said, “have you ever heard of a Star Phone?”
“Indeed.”
“What is it?”
“That which allowed you to enter.”
“Yeah. We got that. Anything else?”
“A path of wisdom for those who seek.”
Andie stepped right up to the cylinder with the Star Phone. “What else is it?”
“Over time, as methods of inscription increased in sophistication, an abundance of knowledge from many different cultures was preserved.”
“Dammit!” she said.
“Please respect the sanctity of the Keeper’s chamber.”
“Wave it through,” Cal suggested.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just try it.”
“Where does the Star Phone lead?” Andie asked.
“It is a path of wisdom for those who seek,” Hypatia said.
“And where does this path end?”
“Only with great foresight and vision may the path of humanity be altered.”
“What do you know about the Leap Year Society?”
“I am not authorized to discuss this.”
Clenching her hands in frustration, Andie did as Cal had suggested, reaching out to wave the device through the stream of violet light. As soon as she did, she noticed movement on the face of the Star Phone. She edged closer, stepping inside the swarm of languages, watching in shock as a new code typed itself into the cursor spaces. As before, the nine-digit code locked into place, now revealing the image of a blue zero in the middle of a shape resembling a double helix. Inside the zero, in turn, was a curious symbol outlined in crimson: the number 3 with a looped tail, set beneath a curved horn or claw lying on its side and cradling a square or hollow box.
As before, the previous code disappeared, reverting to a blinking cursor.
“Good suggestion,” Andie said to Cal, slowly stepping away.
“What did you see?”
After showing him the altered face of the Star Phone, which caused him to whistle, Andie peppered Hypatia with questions until she grew tired of hearing the same answers over and over, with little variance except for a historical factoid now and again.
“Hey,” Cal said, touching her shoulder. “We’re not getting anything new, and I’m worried we’re overstaying our welcome.” He gave the steel door a nervous glance. “I don’t want to be stuck in here when this vault closes for the night.”
She realized he was right, though she had to vent some frustration. “Who the hell are you?” she shouted. “Show yourselves, dammit! Help us!”
The silence of the underground vault was deafening.
“The real Hypatia would have come in person,” Andie said in disgust, then turned on her heel and left.
They left the house without incident. Trying to decide what to do next, Andie and Cal ducked into an unassuming restaurant wedged between a shoe store and a corner market, a dozen blocks south of the not-so-abandoned villa.
Or maybe it was abandoned. Maybe the owners of the house and the keepers of the digital library controlled events from a remote location, watching over every visitor, playing God in their little universe. Andie was torn between falling to her knees with awe at the life-changing promise of secret knowledge the library offered, and a scoffing suspicion that it didn’t actually harbor the information Hypatia suggested it did. Either way, someone had put the hologram in place, and Andie’s blood boiled at the thought of someone watching from the shadows as she and Cal entered the house and choosing not to intervene.
Or maybe Dr. Corwin himself was the keeper of the library, and the house had been abandoned since he disappeared.
That didn’t quite make sense to her, since Dr. Corwin lived halfway across the world. Surely someone else was involved.
She didn’t know what the hell was going on.
After choosing a table in the basement of the restaurant, a white-walled room with a giant projector screen playing Egyptian music videos on one of the walls, Andie and Cal decided to split a greasy but delicious layered pastry called a fateer.
“We’ve got to find a way to go back,” Cal said. He seemed dazed by what they had seen. “Imagine what they might have stored in that vault.”
“If they have what Hypatia implied, and if they wanted to share, they would have released it a long time ago.”
“They can’t just keep it to themselves in that dungeon.”
“Apparently, they can. And they have.”
Cal took a long drink of karkadeh, a cold hibiscus tea that came with the meal, then stared down at his hands. “I only got a glimpse of what was going on in that black-site facility I investigated. How many governments and companies around the world are conducting experiments and harboring research we never hear about?”
“Your point is? I’m not here to save the world.”
“Maybe you should be.”
Andie pushed her plate away. While the fateer was satisfying at first, t
he grease was starting to get to her. As was the conversation.
“Look,” Cal said after a moment. “I’m just trying to get a handle on all this. I know it’s extremely personal to you—but it is to me too.”
Andie steepled her fingers against her mouth, closed her eyes, and let out a deep breath. “I know.”
After the waiter swung by to drop the check, Cal said, “I can let the library go, but we need to get out of this city. Has anything changed in your mind?”
Still corralling her anger, she opened her eyes and stared at the video screen behind Cal without really seeing it. “I’m confused as to how it all fits together. Was Dr. Corwin part of the Leap Year Society, or did they shoot him? Are there two different factions? More than two? Either way, they’re not trying to kill us for no reason. Everyone seems to want the Star Phone and whatever it leads to, so I still think following it is our best bet.”
“I have to agree. Do you have any idea what the next clue means? Where we might need to go?”
“The zero makes me think of Aryabhata. He was an Indian astronomer and mathematician—fifth or sixth century, I think—”
“Pre-JC, or post?”
“Post. He wrote an incredible work of genius called the Aryabhatiya when he was only twenty-three. Among other things, he’s credited with advancing the conceptual framework of the absence of a measurable quantity. The zero. He didn’t come up with it himself—it was a process, one which the Mayans, and the Babylonians before them, were also undertaking—but Aryabhata devised a number system around it. He was also one of Dr. Corwin’s favorite historical figures. It’s a good place to start.”
“And the rest? The DNA thingy and those squiggly lines?”
“I don’t know about the double helix. The other symbol looks Hindi or Sanskrit to me, which fits with Aryabhata. In fact, let me check on that right now.”
When Andie pulled out the phone she had purchased in the Alexandrian airport, she decided to quickly check her email. There was still no reply from Dr. Corwin—she had almost given up hope on that front—but there was a new message from a sender called Cassi with a subject line that read Invitation to a Masked Ball.
The sender’s return address was [email protected]. Thinking it was spam, she started to delete it, but something about those numbers and the odd subject line made her pause.
As a frenetic EDM video played in the background, she stared at the address for a moment before it clicked.
“One four one five nine. Those are the first five numbers of pi after the decimal point.”
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Hang on.”
By the time Andie finished reading the short email and realized the import of the sender’s name, her face had gone white, her hands trembling as they clutched the cell phone. Instead of responding to Cal’s repeated inquiries, she handed him the phone and sat rigid in her chair, trying to process the storm of emotions whipping through her with the force of a hurricane.
Dear Andromeda,
I just received word of the unfortunate situation in which you’re involved. I have intervened on your behalf and arranged for you to attend a soiree in Venice this weekend, where it is my greatest hope that all differences will be resolved. You’ll find first-class tickets with EgyptAir for you and your friend waiting at Borg El Arab International Airport.
You have my word you will arrive in Venice unharmed and under my protection. Yet I must impress upon you that, if you do not accept my invitation, I will not be able to protect you. I wish it were not so, but there are powerful forces involved—extremely powerful—who are beyond my ability to influence.
I’m so terribly sorry the first communication you’ve received from me after all this time should arrive in such a manner, and I won’t attempt to convey in an email the depth of emotion I feel about the prospect of seeing you again. I love you more than you could ever know, Little Mouse, and implore you to come to Venice so we can reconnect in person and work together to resolve this unfortunate situation.
To attend the ball, simply wait atop the Ponte dell’Accademia at midnight on Friday night, and someone will transport you. You may dress however you wish, though I suggest formal attire befitting your truly remarkable beauty. I’ll never forget how lovely you looked carrying father’s crystal angel. Finally, it’s extremely important—imperative—that you bring the device called the Star Phone.
Love forever,
Your mother
PART FOUR
25
As the Egyptian sun crested the horizon, bathing the hillside around the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa in honey, Omer emerged, soaking wet, from the closed entrance to the mausoleum, startling an early-bird tourist so badly she tripped and fell as she fled across the courtyard.
There was no sign of anyone else. Even if Zawadi thought he had survived, she would never risk exposure by sticking around this long. After giving the shuttered guard shack a sidelong glance—the morning shift would arrive any minute and discover the body—Omer hurried through the gate and walked down the hill, reflecting on his escape as he searched for a taxi. The long submersion had destroyed his cell phone.
Under any circumstance, Zawadi was a feared opponent. If the odds were even, Omer did not know who would prevail between them. But Zawadi had shot him in the shoulder before he even knew she was there. Fearing others nearby and knowing she had the superior position, Omer had had no choice but to cower behind a ruined pillar in the courtyard. When Zawadi had flushed him out, instead of running across the open courtyard as she wanted, he had doubled back into the catacombs, hoping she would not give chase.
Yet she had bounded down the spiral staircase after him, forcing him to take the only option he saw left: a desperate dive into the murky waters of the flooded lower level.
Omer could hold his breath for an extraordinarily long time. Yet Zawadi would leave nothing to chance. She might divine where he had gone and wait around to ensure he never surfaced.
What she would not do, however, was follow him down. That would be suicidal—as he knew it might be for him. Not knowing if he would ever take another breath, Omer filled his lungs with air before he dove, lowered his respiratory rate, and swam through the submerged catacombs, using his waterproof penlight to guide the way as he searched for another exit. Beneath him, shards of broken pottery protruded from the sand-covered floor. He suspected the sand had flushed in with the groundwater, and that this level had never been excavated.
Long minutes later, on the verge of having to risk surfacing in front of Zawadi, he found a sagging portion of the ceiling down one of the ruined passages. He used his boot knife to pry loose one of the stones, and just before he blacked out, he got another stone loose, and then another, and managed to poke his head through the hole. Air, sweet air! He had no idea if he had broken through to the next level up or found another section entirely. It didn’t matter. Instead of climbing out and risking exposure, he floated in the chilly water for hours, returning to the hole for air as needed.
To stop the blood loss from the gunshot wound, he took off his windbreaker and made a crude tourniquet. Used to submerging his body in extreme temperatures, he withstood the cold, imagining his flesh as a suit of armor encasing his body, keeping him warm and dry. His greatest fear was infection from the filthy water, but there was nothing he could do about that until he surfaced.
When he finally climbed out of the flooded level, half-alive and barely able to climb the stairs, Zawadi was nowhere to be seen. Just to be sure, he waited inside the mausoleum until sunrise and tried not to stumble when he emerged into daylight.
A modicum of strength returned as the sun warmed his skin, and his relief at surviving the ordeal turned to anger and then satisfaction and, finally, to his first moment of true hope in days.
The enemy had sent their best to kill him and had failed.
Not only that: they, and any Ascendants who were watching, would think they had succeeded.
T
welve hours later, in the city of Amman in Jordan, Omer watched in the darkness as Juma Qureshi opened the door to her top-floor suite. By the stillness of her presence, he knew she had noticed the red pinprick of light on the left side of her chest, just atop her breast.
“Come in,” he said softly, from an armchair in the living room
“Can I turn on the light?”
“Please do.”
Juma closed the door behind her as she stepped inside the suite and flicked on the track lighting. On the other side of the living room, Omer was sitting in a chair, holding a black handgun with a laser sight under the barrel. Behind him, outside a plate-glass window, the glowing towers of the Al-Husseini Mosque sat like a golden crown atop the city.
“My God, Omer, you look like hell. Why is your shoulder bound? Did you get shot?”
He pointed at a low-slung chartreuse sofa to her right. “Sit.”
They had been lovers and comrades in arms for almost three years, and he knew her stress reactions as well as she did. As she stepped hesitantly out of the entrance hall, entering the open-floor-plan living room, he nudged his head to the left, his eyes never leaving hers. “On the side by the table. Take off your coat and leave your gun on the floor.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“I won’t ask again.”
Moving in slow motion, she removed her Glock G17 from its ankle holster and laid it on the floor. After shrugging out of her belted red coat and draping it over a chair, she took a seat on the couch. Beside her was a glass end table with a single cup of tea. Juma was quite fastidious and did not miss details. She would realize she had not left it out, and what it portended.
“Drink,” Omer said.
“What is it?”
“A sedative. We’re going to talk. What happens after you fall asleep depends on what you say.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this, my love. Why don’t we step into the bedroom—”
“And give you an opportunity to catch me off guard? I think not.”
She shook out her lustrous dark hair as she sank into the sofa, her lips puckering as she crossed her legs. “Tie me up first, if you like.”